She looks so fresh and so young, so pampered in her black velvet and white linen, that I cannot bring myself to join them at the dining table. She has had time to wash and change her clothes; her dark hair is like a swallow’s wing, sleek and tucked up under her white hood. Her face, pale and smooth, is as beautiful as a portrait as she looks down the hall and raises her white hand to me and smiles her seductive smile. For the first time in my life, for the first time ever, I feel untidy; worse, I feel... old. I have never felt this before. All through my life, through the courtships of four husbands, I have always been a young bride, younger than most of their household. I have always been the pretty young woman, skilled in household arts, clever at managing the people who work for me, neat in my dress, smart in my clothes, remarkable for wisdom beyond my years, a young woman with all her life before her.

But tonight, for the first time ever, I realize that I am not a young woman anymore. Here, in my own house, in my own great hall, where I should be most at ease in my comfort and my pride, I see that I have become an older woman. No, actually not even that. I am not an older woman: I am an old woman, an old woman of forty-one years. I am past childbearing; I have risen as high as I am likely to go; my fortunes are at their peak; my looks can now only decline. I am without a future, a woman whose days are mostly done. And Mary Queen of Scots, one of the most beautiful women in the world, young enough to be my daughter, a princess by birth, a queen ordained, is sitting at dinner, dining alone with my husband, at my own table, and he is leaning towards her, close, closer, and his eyes are on her mouth and she is smiling at him.

WINGFIELD MANOR: GEORGE

MAY, 1569

I am waiting with the horses in the great courtyard of the manor when the doors of the hall open, and she comes out, dressed for riding in a gown of golden velvet. I am not a man who notices such things, but I suppose she has a new gown, or a new bonnet, or something of that nature. What I do see is that in the pale sunshine of a beautiful morning she is somehow gilded. The beautiful courtyard is like a jewel box around something rare and precious, and I find myself smiling at her, grinning, I fear, like a fool.